Post navigation

The Danish Company Savivo launches an Educational Indiegogo Project

(Press Release)

The Danish educational company Savivo launches an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign (Find preview of the project here) to fund an innovative learning project. The Mingoville Fun Clock App and #EduWatch is a unique educational idea that combines online learning with real practice.

“We have been working for a decade in the field of primary digital education and we have noticed that at this young age children forget things really quickly. But if they learn by doing, the memory retention rate is up to 70%. That gave us the idea of completing the learning process of how to tell the time with the Mingoville Fun Clock App and with a real watch,” says Savivo’s CEO Stephan Stephensen.

As visual memory is very important for children, the Mingoville #EduWatch is specially designed to look like the clock in the Mingoville App, so children can make the connection between what they have seen in the app and the physical watch on their wrist. This also completes the natural process of learning how to tell the time with the Mingoville App and practicing the newly acquired skills with the #EduWatch.

Indiegogo and Education

With the launch of this Educational Indiegogo Project, Stephensen’s goal is to show that Edu games and projects can and should be as successful as entertaining games and high-tech gadgets.

“Indiegogo is already a popular crowd-funding platform for different gadgets and games, that are very successful. We want to prove that the Education section can compete with high-tech projects too. After all, since everyone cares about children’s education, what better platform than crowd-funding?” says Stephensen.

Learn and Play Now!

All the contributors for this project are rewarded with access to the Educational Games right away. The perk levels start at only $3, but no matter how much is pledged, there will be at least one digital game for every contributor.

“We believe our project has a worthy cause: promoting digital education. That is why we are happy to support it and give our games away. And we hope our contributors and fans will join the pledge too!” says Stephensen.

The #EduWatch comes in a variety of colors and the Indiegogo price starts at $25, whereas the expected retail price is $50. The goal of the project is to fund the production of the Mingoville #EduWatch, which is specially created for children. It is ready to handle the daily challenges of the playground: it is shock-resistant, waterproof (3ATM) and tested for Nickel allergies. The watch has a fast wrap strap, so even the youngest kids can easily put it on.

“We have the designs and prototypes ready. Now we just need to fund it!”, says Stephensen.

Indiegogo – For more information and the current crowd funding status, please visit the Indiegogo page at: http://bit.ly/1ysgLVN

Interview – If you are interested, our CEO Stephan Stephensen, who is an international e-learning expert, will be happy to give a special interview for you via phone: +45 3333 8111 or skype: mingoville

A frequent guest speaker on e-learning, m-learning, digital education games technology, Stephan Stephensen founded Savivo in early 2000s in Copenhagen, Denmark, which was a milestone in revolutionizing English and Math learning in classrooms with award-winning mobile apps and web-based products.

His work has been recognized by awards such as the “Danish Mobile Award“ 2011 for making an extraordinary impact in mobile technology and the “Best MoBiz and Innovative Enterprise Award” at the Global Mobile Internet Conference, Beijing, China 2013.

About the Company

Savivo is a digital educational provider. As an award-winning education e-games and apps developer, the company has the winning formula to create fun, innovative and savvy games for kids. Savivo’s best¬sellers include Mingoville English, Mondiso Math and Fun Clock.

The means of achieving that goal is IndieGoGo, a crowdfunding website.

What Is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is a novel and fairly new way of financing various projects. Crowdfunding is about going directly to the consumer and asking ”Do you like this project enough to pay for it, even if it doesn’t exist yet?” Thousands of enthusiasts, philanthropists and just people who wants to see something come true can band together, and make something come true. Big projects, ranging from software, books, music and movies have all been funded by crowdfunding, and now, if we have something to be said, education will be crowdfunded too.

What Is The Risk?

In our case, there is no risk. You won’t pay ANYTHING if our campaign fails. If we don’t reach our goal, you won’t miss a single cent. And when our campaign succeeds, we are ready to start producing the watches. Actually, as soon as our campaign is over, we will start getting the watches made. The prototypes are done, packaging is designed and we only need the last push.

What’s In It For Me?

Except for a watch for your child, and most of our products ready for use? If that isn’t enough, contribute to the campaign to show that educational content has its niche in the world of crowdfunding. Educating children is our most important task in the world, and if we can start by just crowdfunding a watch and the software, which will make learning easier, we’ve had a very good beginning.

Okay, I’m Convinced. Can I Help?

The biggest help you can give us, besides buying a watch, is by spreading the word. Share the project with friends, on your Facebook and let people know, that this is a good project. The more people who sees this, the better! If just north of 300 people want a watch, our campaign will succeed!

So visit our campaign here: http://bit.ly/1t2s8hN, watch the Youtube video we’ve made below, and thank you for being interested in children’s education!

Savivo participated in the Danish Entrepreneurship Camp 2014 in Korea, where we attended high-level meetings with the Danish Minister for Trade and Development Cooperation Mogens Jensen, Samsung Executives and the Korean e-learning organizations Nipa and Kelia.

Once upon a time, storytelling was the fabric that bound us together. The act of telling and retelling stories has always been part of human history. Telling stories is now making a comeback with Mingoville Storytelling, which combines education, entertainment and creativity.

The latest app from the award-winning edutainment developer Savivo, Mingoville Storytelling is an app build on the principle that retelling stories help develop language in children. Mingoville Storytelling takes this technique and combines it with modern technology in the form of voice recording, colorful pictures and the ability to share stories via email.

The app contains 10 Mingoville stories, 160 images with eye-catching elements and narration by professional voice actors. This combination ensures that children are captivated, challenged and able to improve their reading, writing and listening skills. Children get to analyze stories for important elements and then use these elements to retell the story. And afterwards, they can tell a story of their own, using these 160 pictures in any combination.

CEO of Savivo, Stephan Stephensen, explains the importance of this approach: “Retelling as a educational tool has been used by some educators, especially those teaching English language learners. While it hasn’t enjoyed much time in the limelight, the technique is sound and has had positive feedback from researchers and educators around the world. We can’t wait to see what stories the children will come up with!”

Mingoville Storytelling allows children to create stories and share them, which makes the joy of telling and sharing much more approachable and immediate. Hearing stories, retelling them, creating them and sharing them has never been easier or more entertaining.

Normal education apps are fairly similar. They have a subject, they tell you about it and they might have some sort of games or quiz attached. Mingoville Storytelling is different, though. Instead of having a specific goal, like teaching children how to add or spell, the developer Savivo has chosen a more unorthodox approach. They call it “whole language learning”, where the emphasis lies on learning to read by writing.

2 in 1 – Reading and Listening Stories

First the child listens and tries to read the stories narrated by the Mingoville flamingo characters. The stories range from everyday happenings, like the tale of the red sock in the washing machine, to the more adventurous, like the one where the flamingo Jonathan is attacked by a shark. Narrated by American and British voice actors, the stories are quite fun and will surely appeal to both boys and girls. The accompanying pictures are drawn in a simple, cartoony and charming style. These pictures are as important to the stories as the spoken words. They all contain elements that directly tie into the stories, and this becomes important in the next section of the app.

Becoming a Storyteller

When the child has been told a story, it is asked to retell the story. The pictures are the same, but there is no narrator or written text. Instead, the child has to rewrite the story itself, using only the pictures as a guide. This activity will challenge the memory of the child, not to mention its vocabulary and writing abilities. The pictures with their clear focus on important elements do however make this a manageable task.

Creating Your Own Stories

The last part of the app, and probably the one that will see most use, is the ability to create a new and unique story. Using any of the unlocked 160 pictures, the child can write a story using their own words. The app even has the ability to record spoken words, so if the child wants to supplement the story with dialogue, sound effects or just supplementary narration, it can do that. When a story is finished, it can be shared using mail or auto-generated “Book codes”. To children, this aspect of the app is very appealing, as they can suddenly share their creations with parents, grandparents and friends in an easy and simple way.

If Savivo wanted children to learn to both write and read better by doing it, they have succeeded. It isn’t hard to get children to sit down and begin the work of making up their own stories, and it speaks to reason that the more they do it, the better the end result will be.

Here at Savivo we’re happy to talk about our next educational program. We call it Mingoville Storytelling, and it will be released very soon.

Mingoville Storytelling will use stories as the vehicle for learning. In the app, children will hear stories set in the Mingoville universe, retell them and even compose their own stories.

Retelling as an educational concept is not a new language-learning concept, but we’ve combined it with beautiful pictures, professional voice acting and the ability to write and record customized stories.

The app contains 10 stories for the children to listen to. After having heard a story, the child is asked to tell the story again, using the pictures as help. This will encourage children to analyze the told story, combine the important story events with the descriptive pictures, and then use those elements to retell the story as accurately as possible. This will train children’s memory, vocabulary and encourage better reading comprehension and writing.

The last component of the app is the option to tell stories. The children can use any of the unlocked pictures, 160 in total, to tell stories of their own devising. When a picture has been picked, the children can write an accompanying story. If they want to, they can also record their own narration.
When they are finished telling a story, and trust us, it won’t be their only one, they can share it with friends and family in different ways. They can send a mail through the app or they can generate a Book Code, a combination of six letters, which gives access to the story. These codes can be shared easily through email, texts, Facebook or just handwritten notes, and we hope to see many interesting stories both made and shared using Mingoville Storytelling.We’re sure that children trying this app will improve their English by retelling and making their own stories. We can’t wait to see what kind of stories will be made, when Mingoville Storytelling is released. We’ll let you know when it’s ready!

Tuesday, September 10th, the Danish municipality of Gentofte announced their new initiative for children between three and nine years. The initiative is called PLAY and LEARN and the idea is that children are to be exposed to the English language as early as possible.

Language gives cultural understanding
According to Anne Holmen, professor at the University of Copenhagen, the importance of an early start at language education can’t be understated. One thing is that the global labor market is dominated by English, which makes English skills almost mandatory. Another, and less quantifiable monetary advantage, is the more human skills attained by learning languages. According to Anne Holmen, good language skills give children a larger cultural understanding and a more global perspective. Not to mention, starting to learn English in an early age will give children a better language fluency and pronounciation.

A political goal
The Danish government decided back in June how the Danish education system should look like after August 2014. One of the decisions made, was that English as a language is to be taught from the first grade. Many schools and child care centers have started to implement English education ahead of the school reform. And now Gentofte municipality, as the first in Denmark, has announced that English is to be taught for children between 3 and 9 years old. This will not substitute English education in the later grades, but instead supplement it.

Where we come in
Beginning English learning from an earlier age requires more than just the ambition. It requires both teachers and educators with the necessary skills, but also tools and materials tailor made for this purpose. And this is where Mingoville Preschool come in. It has already been tested in child care centers in Vietnam, is successful in both China and many Latin American countries, which made it the obvious choice for Gentofte.

Our CEO, Stephan Stephensen, is happy for this initiative:
“It’s good to see a Danish municipality like Gentofte, who seriously focuses on the English education of smaller children.”

We’re both happy and proud to be part of this project, and hope that Gentofte isn’t the last Danish municipality who’s going to do something like this.